OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14443956
ROANOKE ELECTRIC STEEL CORPORATION SALEM PLANT 2
SALEM, VA—
Event description
ELECTRIC SHOCK - GROUND FAULT IN ELECTRIC HEATER
Investigation abstract
A skeleton crew on the third shift at a steel plant was assigned to load steel i nto a trailer for shipment. The employees would go at intervals to a 480-volt po rtable electric heater to get warm. The heater was placed alongside a steel cool ing bed at the south end of the plant. One of the employees was resting his left arm on the top of the heater. He contacted a metal guardrail post surrounding t he steel cooling bed with his right hand while he was still touching the heater. He was electrocuted by an apparent ground fault in the heater.
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 24 M
- Nature of injury
- 10
- Part of body
- 4
- Event type
- 13
- Source
- 15
- Occupation code
- 889
- Human factor
- 9
- Environmental factor
- 14
- Hazardous substance
- 8870
- Task assigned
- 1
Codes shown verbatim from OSHA's accident-investigation database. A human-readable decoder is coming in a future release once the accident_lookup2 dictionary is loaded.